Installing on Red Hat OpenStack Platform

Installing Infrastructure Automation

Installing Infrastructure Automation consists of the following steps:

Downloading the appliance for your environment as a virtual machine image template.
Setting up a virtual machine based on the appliance.
Configuring the Infrastructure Automation appliance.

After you have completed all the procedures in this guide, you will have a working environment on which additional customizations and configurations can be performed.

Obtaining the appliance

Uploading the Appliance on OpenStack

Log in to the OpenStack dashboard.
In the Project tab, browse to menu: Compute > Images.
Click Create Image.
In Name, enter a name for the image.
From Image Source list, select Image Location. Note that currently only images available via an HTTP URL are supported.
In Image Location, add an external (HTTP) URL to load the image from. For example, http://example.com/image.iso.
From the Format list, select the image format. For example, `ISO
- Optical Disk Image`.
Specify the Architecture. For example, i386 for a 32-bit architecture or x86-64 for a 64-bit architecture.
Leave the Minimum Disk (GB) and Minimum RAM (MB) fields empty.
Check the Public box to make the appliance available to all users.
Check the Protected box to protect the image from being accidentally deleted.
Click Create Image.

You have successfully uploaded the Infrastructure Automation appliance.

The appliance image is placed in a queue to be uploaded. It may take some time before the Status of the image changes from Queued to Active.

Adding a Rule to a Security Group

Security groups specify what IP traffic is allowed to reach an instance on its public IP address. Security group rules are processed before network traffic reaches firewall rules defined within the guest itself.

Note:

In the default configuration, the default security group accepts all connections from the default source; all instances within the default group can talk to each other on any port.

From the OpenStack dashboard, browse to menu: Project > Compute > Access & Security.
Browse to menu: **Security Groups > Manage Rules on the row for the default security group.
Click Add Rule.
Configure the rule.
1. Select Rule > Custom TCP Rule.
2. Select Direction > Ingress.
3. Select Port from the Open Port list.
4. Specify 443 in the Port field.
5. Select CIDR from the Remote list.
6. Specify 0.0.0.0/0 in the CIDR field.
7. Click Add.

Creating a Custom Flavor

A flavor is a resource allocation profile that specifies, for example, how many virtual CPUs and how much RAM can be allocated to an instance. You can, for example, run Infrastructure Automation on a Red Hat OpenStack m1.large flavor, which specifies a virtual machine with 4 cores, 12 GB RAM, and 80 GB disk space. Creating a flavor to run Infrastructure Automation is optional.

The following procedure demonstrates creating a flavor with the minimum requirements (4 cores, 12 GB RAM, 44 GB disk space) for Infrastructure Automation. For more information about flavors, see the Red Hat OpenStack Platform Administration User Guide.

Log in to the OpenStack dashboard as admin.
In the Admin tab, browse to menu: System > Flavors.
Click Create Flavor to display the Create Flavor dialog.
Configure the settings to define a flavor that meets Infrastructure Automation system requirements.
1. Enter a name for the flavor.
2. Enter the following settings:
  - VCPUs: 4
  - RAM MB: 12288
  - Root Disk GB: 70
  - Ephemeral Disk GB: 0
  - Swap Disk MB: 0
Click Create Flavor.

A new flavor specific to Infrastructure Automation is created.

Launching the Instance

From the OpenStack dashboard, browse to menu: Project > Compute > Instances.
Click Launch Instance.
Enter a name for the instance.
Select the custom flavor for your instance. The flavor selection determines the computing resources available to your instance. The resources used by the flavor are displayed in the Flavor Details pane.
Enter 1 in the Instance Count field.
Select a boot option from the Instance Boot Source list:
- Boot from image - displays a new field for Image Name. Select the image from the drop-down list.
- Boot from snapshot - displays a new field for Instance Snapshot. Select the snapshot from the drop-down list.
- Boot from volume - displays a new field for Volume. Select the volume from the drop-down list.
- Boot from image (creates a new volume) - boot from an image and create a volume by choosing Device Size and Device Name for your volume. Some volumes can be persistent. To ensure the volume is deleted when the instance is deleted, select Delete on Terminate.
- Boot from volume snapshot (creates a new volume) - boot from volume snapshot and create a new volume by choosing Volume Snapshot from the drop-down list and adding a Device Name for your volume. Some volumes can be persistent. To ensure the volume is deleted when the instance is deleted, select Delete on Terminate.
Click Networking and select a network for the instance by clicking the + (plus) button for the network from Available Networks.
Click Launch.

Adding a Floating IP Address

When you create an instance, Red Hat OpenStack Platform automatically assigns it a fixed IP address in the network to which the instance belongs. This IP address is permanently associated with the instance until the instance is terminated.

In addition to the fixed address, you can also assign a floating IP address to an instance. Unlike fixed IP addresses, you can modify floating IP addresses associations at any time, regardless of the state of the instances involved.

At the command-line on your RHEL OpenStack Platform host, create a pool of floating IP addresses using the nova-manage floating create command. Replace IP_BLOCK with the desired block of IP addresses expressed in CIDR notation.
```
$ nova-manage floating create IP_BLOCK
```
In the Project tab, browse to Compute > Access & Security.
Click Floating IPs > Allocate IP To Project. The Allocate Floating IP window is displayed.
Click Allocate IP to allocate a floating IP from the pool. The allocated IP address appears in the Floating IPs table.
Select the newly allocated IP address from the Floating IPs table. Click Associate to assign the IP address to a specific instance.
Select an instance with which to associate the floating IP Address.
Click Associate to associate the IP address with the selected instance.

Note:

To disassociate a floating IP address from an instance when it is no longer required, click Release Floating IPs.

Configuring Infrastructure Automation

After installing Infrastructure Automation and running it for the first time, you must perform some basic configuration. You must complete these steps:

Add a disk to the infrastructure that is hosting your appliance.
Configure the database.
Configure messaging

Configure the appliance by using the internal appliance console.

Accessing the Appliance Console

Start the appliance and open a terminal console.
Enter the appliance_console command. The Infrastructure Automation appliance summary screen displays.
Press Enter to manually configure settings.
Press the number for the item you want to change, and press Enter. The options for your selection are displayed.
Follow the prompts to make the changes.
Press Enter to accept a setting where applicable.

Note:

The Infrastructure Automation appliance console automatically logs out after five minutes of inactivity.

Configuring a Database

Infrastructure Automation uses a database to store information about the environment. Before using Infrastructure Automation, configure the database options for it; Infrastructure Automation provides the following two options for database configuration:

Configuring an Internal Database

Before installing an internal database, add a disk to the infrastructure hosting your appliance. See the documentation specific to your infrastructure for instructions for adding a disk. As a storage disk usually cannot be added while a virtual machine is running, Red Hat recommends adding the disk before starting the appliance. Infrastructure Automation only supports installing of an internal VMDB on blank disks; installation will fail if the disks are not blank.

</div>

Start the appliance and open a terminal console.
Enter the appliance_console command. The Infrastructure Automation appliance summary screen displays.
Press Enter to manually configure settings.
Select Configure Application from the menu.
You are prompted to create or fetch an encryption key.
- If this is the first Infrastructure Automation appliance, choose Create key.
- If this is not the first Infrastructure Automation appliance, choose Fetch key from remote machine to fetch the key from the first appliance. For worker and multi-region setups, use this option to copy key from another appliance.
  
  Note:
  
  All Infrastructure Automation appliances in a multi-region deployment must use the same key.
Choose Create Internal Database for the database location.

In the Configure Messaging menu, select Make No messaging changes. If you see Configuration failed: Internal database require a volume mounted at /var/lib/pgsql. Please add an unpartitioned disk and try again. message, then ensure to add a second disk for the database per instructions as defined above.
Choose a disk for the database. This can be either a disk you attached previously, or a partition on the current disk.

Red Hat recommends using a separate disk for the database.

If there is an unpartitioned disk attached to the virtual machine, the dialog will show options similar to the following:
```
1) /dev/vdb: 20480
2) Don't partition the disk
```
- Enter 1 to choose /dev/vdb for the database location. This option creates a logical volume using this device and mounts the volume to the appliance in a location appropriate for storing the database. The default location is /var/lib/pgsql, which can be found in the environment variable $APPLIANCE_PG_MOUNT_POINT.
- Enter 2 to continue without partitioning the disk. A second prompt will confirm this choice. Selecting this option results in using the root filesystem for the data directory (not advised in most cases).
Enter Y or N for Should this appliance run as a standalone database server?
- Select Y to configure the appliance as a database-only appliance. As a result, the appliance is configured as a basic PostgreSQL server, without a user interface.
- Select N to configure the appliance with the full administrative user interface.
When prompted, enter a unique number to create a new region.

Creating a new region destroys any existing data on the chosen database.
Create and confirm a password for the database.

Infrastructure Automation then configures the internal database. This takes a few minutes. After the database is created and initialized, you can log in to Infrastructure Automation.

Configuring an External Database

Based on your setup, you will choose to configure the appliance to use an external PostgreSQL database. For example, we can only have one database in a single region. However, a region can be segmented into multiple zones, such as database zone, user interface zone, and reporting zone, where each zone provides a specific function. The appliances in these zones must be configured to use an external database.

The postgresql.conf file requires specific settings for correct operation. For example, it must correctly reclaim table space, control session timeouts, and format the PostgreSQL server log for improved system support. It is recommended that external databases use a postgresql.conf file based on the standard file used by the Infrastructure Automation appliance.

Ensure you configure the settings in the postgresql.conf to suit your system. For example, customize the shared_buffers setting according to the amount of real storage available in the external system hosting the PostgreSQL instance. In addition, depending on the aggregate number of appliances expected to connect to the PostgreSQL instance, it may be necessary to alter the max_connections setting.

Note:

Infrastructure Automation requires PostgreSQL version 13.
postgresql.conf controls the operation of all databases managed by the PostgreSQL instance, therefore it is not recommended to run other databases on this PostgreSQL instance.

Start the appliance and open a terminal console.
Enter the appliance_console command. The appliance console summary screen will be displayed.
Press Enter to manually configure settings.
Select Configure Application from the menu.
Choose Create Region in External Database for the database location.
Enter the database hostname or IP address when prompted.
Enter the database name or leave blank for the default (vmdb_production).
Enter the database username or leave blank for the default (root).
Enter the chosen database user’s password.
Confirm the configuration if prompted.

Infrastructure Automation will then configure the external database.

Configure Messaging

Configuring messaging is required for appliance setup. It is recommended to configure the broker on the same appliance where your database is configured

Note: You can only have one kafka broker per region

You can either configure the current appliance as a kafka broker, or point the appliance to an existing external kafka broker.

Select the appropriate option either Configure this appliance as a messaging server or Connect to an external messaging system to connect to an external kafka broker. You will be asked to fill in the required Message Client Parameters like IP address and username/password.
Select Proceed and appliance_console will apply the configuration that you have requested then restart evmserverd to pick up the changes.

Configuring a Worker Appliance

You can use multiple appliances to facilitate horizontal scaling, as well as for dividing up work by roles. Accordingly, configure an appliance to handle work for one or many roles, with workers within the appliance carrying out the duties for which they are configured. You can configure a worker appliance through the terminal. The following steps demonstrate how to join a worker appliance to an appliance that already has a region configured with a database and messaging.

Start the appliance and open a terminal console.
Enter the appliance_console command. The Infrastructure Automation appliance summary screen displays.
Press Enter to manually configure settings.
Select Configure Application from the menu.
You are prompted to create or fetch a security key. Since this is not the first Infrastructure Automation appliance, choose 2) Fetch key from remote machine. For worker and multi-region setups, use this option to copy the security key from another appliance.

Note:

All Infrastructure Automation appliances in a multi-region deployment must use the same key.
Choose Join Region in External Database for the database location.
Enter the database hostname or IP address when prompted.
Enter the port number or leave blank for the default (5432).
Enter the database name or leave blank for the default (vmdb_production).
Enter the database username or leave blank for the default (root).
Enter the chosen database user’s password.
Confirm the configuration if prompted.
Choose Connect to an external messaging system to connect to the external kafka broker located on the appliance with the external database

Note: You can only have one kafka broker per region
Enter the necessary Message Client Parameters such as the hostname/IP and username/password
Confirm the configuration if prompted.

Logging In After Installing Infrastructure Automation

Once Infrastructure Automation is installed, you can log in and perform administration tasks.

Browse to the URL for the login screen. (https://xx.xx.xx.xx on the virtual machine instance)
Enter the default credentials (Username: admin | Password: smartvm) for the initial login.
Click Login.

Change your password to ensure more private and secure access to Infrastructure Automation.

Browse to the URL for the login screen. (https://xx.xx.xx.xx on the virtual machine instance)
Click Update Password beneath the Username and Password text fields.
Enter your current Username and Password in the text fields.
Input a new password in the New Password field.
Repeat your new password in the Verify Password field.
Click Login.

Appendix

Appliance Console Command-Line Interface (CLI)

Currently, the appliance_console_cli feature is a subset of the full functionality of the appliance_console itself, and covers functions most likely to be scripted by using the command-line interface (CLI).

After starting the Infrastructure Automation appliance, log in with a user name of root and the default password of smartvm. This displays the Bash prompt for the root user.
Enter the appliance_console_cli or appliance_console_cli --help command to see a list of options available with the command, or simply enter appliance_console_cli --option <argument> directly to use a specific option.

Database Configuration Options


Option	Description
–region (-r)	region number (create a new region in the database - requires database credentials passed)
–internal (-i)	internal database (create a database on the current appliance)
–dbdisk	database disk device path (for configuring an internal database)
–hostname (-h)	database hostname
–port	database port (defaults to `5432`)
–username (-U)	database username (defaults to `root`)
–password (-p)	database password
–dbname (-d)	database name (defaults to `vmdb_production`)

v2_key Options


Option	Description
–key (-k)	create a new v2_key
–fetch-key (-K)	fetch the v2_key from the given host
–force-key (-f)	create or fetch the key even if one exists
–sshlogin	ssh username for fetching the v2_key (defaults to `root`)
–sshpassword	ssh password for fetching the v2_key

IPA Server Options


Option	Description
–host (-H)	set the appliance hostname to the given name
–ipaserver (-e)	IPA server FQDN
–ipaprincipal (-n)	IPA server principal (default: `admin`)
–ipapassword (-w)	IPA server password
–ipadomain (-o)	IPA server domain (optional). Will be based on the appliance domain name if not specified.
–iparealm (-l)	IPA server realm (optional). Will be based on the domain name of the ipaserver if not specified.
–uninstall-ipa (-u)	uninstall IPA client

Note:

In order to configure authentication through an IPA server, in addition to using Configure External Authentication (httpd) in the appliance_console, external authentication can be optionally configured via the appliance_console_cli (command-line interface).
Specifying –host will update the hostname of the appliance. If this step was already performed via the appliance_console and the necessary updates that are made to /etc/hosts if DNS is not properly configured, the –host option can be omitted.

Certificate Options


Option	Description
–ca (-c)	CA name used for certmonger (default: `ipa`)
–postgres-client-cert (-g)	install certs for postgres client
–postgres-server-cert	install certs for postgres server
–http-cert	install certs for http server (to create certs/httpd* values for a unique key)
–extauth-opts (-x)	external authentication options

Note: The certificate options augment the functionality of the certmonger tool and enable creating a certificate signing request (CSR), and specifying certmonger the directories to store the keys.

Other Options


Option	Description
–logdisk (-l)	log disk path
–tmpdisk	initialize the given device for temp storage (volume mounted at `/var/www/miq_tmp`)
–verbose (-v)	print more debugging info

Example Usage.

$ ssh root@appliance.test.company.com

To create a new database locally on the server by using /dev/sdb:

# appliance_console_cli --internal --dbdisk /dev/sdb --region 0 --password smartvm

To copy the v2_key from a host some.example.com to local machine:

# appliance_console_cli --fetch-key some.example.com --sshlogin root --sshpassword smartvm

You could combine the two to join a region where db.example.com is the appliance hosting the database:

# appliance_console_cli --fetch-key db.example.com --sshlogin root --sshpassword smartvm --hostname db.example.com --password mydatabasepassword

To configure external authentication:

# appliance_console_cli --host appliance.test.company.com
                        --ipaserver ipaserver.test.company.com
                        --ipadomain test.company.com
                        --iparealm TEST.COMPANY.COM
                        --ipaprincipal admin
                        --ipapassword smartvm1

To uninstall external authentication:

# appliance_console_cli  --uninstall-ipa

Installing on Red Hat OpenStack Platform

Installing Infrastructure Automation

Obtaining the appliance

Uploading the Appliance on OpenStack

Adding a Rule to a Security Group

Creating a Custom Flavor

Launching the Instance

Adding a Floating IP Address

Configuring Infrastructure Automation

Accessing the Appliance Console

Configuring a Database

Configuring an Internal Database

Configuring an External Database

Configure Messaging

Configuring a Worker Appliance

Logging In After Installing Infrastructure Automation

Changing the Default Login Password

Appendix

Appliance Console Command-Line Interface (CLI)

Database Configuration Options

v2_key Options

IPA Server Options

Certificate Options

Other Options